My first idea for my  next “Curl Up With…” in the series was to do a piece on my favourite childhood books but when I got to work listing my favourites, it appeared that a good 75% were by Enid Blyton. That being the case I decided that this wonderful author deserved her own post.

My favourite childhood author

Enid Blyton was (and still is) one of my favourite ever authors. I credit her with my love of, not just books, but with story-telling, Here is an author whose tales of adventure took me to worlds I wanted to inhabit;  worlds of excitement and wonder and freedom and thrills.

Enid Mary Blyton was born on 11^th August 1897 in London and wrote a staggering 800 books which were  translated into 90 languages making her the 5^th most translated author ever, just behind Shakespeare (for anyone who is interested the actual top 10 is: Walt Disney Productions, Agatha Christie, Jules Verne, Shakespeare, Enid Blyton, Lenin, Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steel, Hans Christian Andersen, and Stephen King).

Noddy

1949 cover

My love affair with Blytons books started with Noddy, the little wooden boy who lives in his own house in Toyland and drives around in a yellow taxi with his friends Big Ears, Bumpy Dog and Mr Wobbly Man. Hot on Noddy’s heals came The Magic Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair series – infact one of my earliest memories is my Dad reading The Magic Faraway Tree to me at bedtime; I can still remember the excitement of knowing that we were going to read another chapter and being desperate to know what happened next. I can still relive that memory of pure joy and excitement at inhabiting this world.

The Magic Faraway Tree

In the first novel in the series, Jo, Bessie, Dick and Fanny (although these days their names have been changed to Joe, Beth, Rick and Frannie!) move to live near a large wood. One day, they go for a walk in the wood and discover an enormous tree whose branches seem to reach into the clouds. This is the Faraway Tree.

When the children climb the Faraway Tree they discover it is inhabited by different magical creatures, including Moon-face, Silky the fairy, The Saucepan Man, Dame Washalot, Mr. Watzisname and the Angry Pixie. They befriend some of these creatures, in particular Moon-face and Silky. At the very top of the tree they discover a ladder which leads them to a magical land. The lands at the top are sometimes extremely unpleasant – for example the Land of Dame Slap, an aggressive schoolteacher – and sometimes fantastically enjoyable – notably, the Land of Birthdays, Land of Goodies and the Land of Take-What-You-Want.

 Oh how I wanted to go!

The Famous Five

Three of the children, Julian, Dick and Anne, are brothers and sister. During their holidays, they are regularly sent to the seaside town of Kirrin to stay with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin, whose daughter, Georgina, is a tomboy who insists on being called George. George owns a large mongrel dog, Timmy, who is very much part of the group and a character in his own right. Timmy accompanies the four children on every adventure.

The stories always take place in the children’s school holidays when they return from their respective boarding schools. Every time they meet, they get caught up in an adventure, the location of which varies from book to book. Sometimes the scene is set close to George’s family home at Kirrin Cottage in Cornwall: “Kirrin Island“, a picturesque island owned by George and her family in Kirrin Bay, for example, presents many opportunities for adventure. George’s own home and various other houses the children visit or stay in are hundreds of years old, and often contain secret passages or smugglers‘ tunnels. In some books, the children go camping in the countryside, on a hike or holiday together elsewhere. The settings, however, are almost always rural and enable the children to discover the simple joys of cottages, islands, the English and Welsh countryside and sea shores, as well as the adventures, picnics, lemonade, bicycle trips, home-made food, and lashings of ginger beer.

Blyton always said that George was based on a real girl she had once known: in her later life, she admitted that the girl was herself.

The Mallory Towers  and St Clare’s series

My absolute favourite series and I still really, really, really want to go to those schools! (Yes, even now!) I want to have midnight feasts with lashings of ginger beer and to have high tea after a game of lacrosse. I have lost count of how many times I have read both these series and just reminiscing now is making me want to read them all over again right now!

There are 6 books in each series and each one is a different school year at the boarding schools of Mallory Towers and St Clare’s respectively. Mallory Towers is set on the cliff tops in Cornwall and its main character is Darrell Rivers.

The cover of my book from back in the 70's

The main characters of St Clare’s are twins Isabel and Pat O’Sullivan. The characters in both series are fabulous – there are nice girls, horrible girls, tricks played on teachers, midnight feasts, arguments, runaways, but ultimately fun and adventures. I WANT TO GO THERE!!

Controversy

Blyton’s status as a bestselling author is in spite of disapproval of her works from various perspectives, which has led to altered reprints of the books and withdrawals or “bans” from libraries. In the 1990s, Chorion, the owners of Blyton’s works, edited her books to remove passages that were deemed racist or sexist.

The Famous Five come under fire for both, starting with tomboy George often struggling to make herself heard over her older male cousins: In Five on a Hike Together, Julian gives the order  to George: “You may look like a boy and behave like a boy, but you’re a girl all the same. And like it or not, girls have got to be taken care of.” But perhaps more startling is the phrase “black as a nigger with soot” when Five Go Off to Camp. This is one of a number of phrases which ultimately rendered some of her books banned by libraries. These have now, obviously, been omitted from reprints along with name changes (there were rarther a lot of Dicks and Fanny’s in her originals).

Have you read any Enid Blyton?

 Just writing this post had made me want to drag down all my Malory Towers books from the shelf and emmerse myself in a world of sunshine, fun and adventure once again. A huge part of me owes my love of the printed word to this lady and I can still vividly remember the joy I got from eagerly anticipating the next installment of her books at bedtime.

Do you have any fond memories of childhood favourites? Have you read any Enid Blyton and if so what do you think?